


Research Money

by worstloki



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Humor, Anxiety Disorder, Asexual Loki (Marvel), Darcy Lewis & Loki Friendship, Erik gets to be there trying not to judge their weird joint sofa-lounging, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inappropriate Humor, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Jane Foster & Loki Friendship, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki who is Evil Villain (TM), No beta we die like Loki and Loki and Loki and Loki and Lo, Organized Crime, Protective Bruce Banner, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Darcy Lewis, Protective Erik Selvig (Marvel), Protective Jane Foster (Marvel), Protective Loki (Marvel), Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Thor (Marvel), Protective Tony Stark, as far as I'm concerned Jane Darcy and Loki would become friends, but what i mean is they REALLY want to keep jane especially but also darcy and selvig safe from Loki, i say protective, leave me alone, of course Loki has anxiety, okay so I had a setup and was in the mood to write something cracky for fun and started on this, supervillain even, the avengers are all idiot friends whomst are also geniuses, they're all idiot friends whomst are also geniuses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29673882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstloki/pseuds/worstloki
Summary: The Avengers never split up. The Statesman gets to Earth. Loki "reverts" to "villainy". SHIELD was re-set-up after the thing with HYDRA and provides compensation to civilians who get caught amidst hero/villain firefights.One day Loki, Professional Supervillain, pays Jane that visit he once-upon-a-time said he would.She gets paid money for any emotional distress such a meeting must have inflicted.It's *good* money. And Jane is always in need of extra money for her research.Must I say more?
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Loki, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster & Loki, Loki & Erik Selvig
Comments: 50
Kudos: 74





	1. Is That A Velvet Tie?

**Author's Note:**

> Based off [ This Here ](https://worstloki.tumblr.com/post/629232489976758272/jane-well-time-for-plan-b-then-darcy-whats) Tumblr post (which anyone is allowed to steal the idea of btw.)
> 
> I'm not doing any serious research for this fic so you know it's got only the best Hollywood-grade science and I'm also not using any brain-cells on this either so you know it's got only the best badly timed wordplay <3
> 
> Rated for swears and sexual jokes. 
> 
> Enjoy :D

When Jane heard Loki had ‘reverted’ to villainy she didn't really know what to expect. 

The last time she’d interacted with him involved him flinging her towards Malekith, shielding her with his body moments later, before saving Thor’s life (again) and sacrificing himself in the process. 

Connecting the dots between that Loki and the one she’d heard had attacked New York hadn’t really worked out, and she’d decided to put any opinions she could’ve had on him to rest since he had died doing the right thing and helping to save the world anyway. 

But when Thor reached earth in a space ship containing _all that was left of Asgard_ Jane was devastated— all those lives and the advanced technology lost —but Thor’s descriptions of Loki saving Asgard before burning it down had also revived her questions and left her stance on Loki even more befuddled. 

Was he a villain or a hero? 

From what she’d heard his actions tended to end badly for everyone involved, and he had also tried to take over the planet a few years ago, but from what she’d actually seen first-hand he fit more along the lines of someone heroic who just tended to have rotten luck. The evidence was all very contradictory. 

As time passed the footage of Loki and The Avengers fighting on the news every few days did a decent job of arguing for the ‘evil’ side of things, but Jane wasn’t still wholly convinced. You can never tell what is actually going on from news footage anyway, and as a scientist Jane can happily vouch for the media presenting a huge pile of cow dung whenever it feels like it. 

She settled on not needing to come to a decision on where on the goodness scale he ranked, despite his position on basically every international wanted list as a 'Supervillain'.

After all, whichever way he swung wouldn’t really affect her. 

* * *

It isn’t until she is a street away from the SHIELD lab she’s been helping out at part-time and the person she bumps into on the street ends up being Loki that she considers how she would react in a situation where she would ever have to confront him. 

“Loki,” she says, a bit breathless, because this is _Loki_ , internationally wanted _war criminal terrorist,_ and she is on her way to her job, and he is right here, and she’d met him before but they didn’t really _talk_ or anything. In fact, the image of having slapped him vividly comes to mind. “Hi.”

“Morning Doctor Foster,” he answers cheerily, guiding a shoulder to turn her around and walk the opposite direction, “Would you have a minute?” 

_Is he wearing a black on black suit?_

“Um,” Jane says, and winces. She didn’t obtain a PhD in astrophysics or have the Foster theory named after her all to be defeated by a casual conversation. 

“Yes, sure, of course, what can I do for you?” She amends in her professional voice™ while checking her watch. She had had plans to reach SHIELD early and calibrate the new remote multispectral sensor prototype, but clearly that’ll have to wait.

“There’s a cafe just by the corner, if you wouldn’t mind?”

_Yes, let’s just go along with him instead of argue and risk him becoming volatile. He hasn’t done anything strange yet, he hasn’t targeted me before now and she’s still alive so, we’ll just… have coffee?_

_What is the normal procedure in this kind of situation??_

“I don’t mind,” she laughs too lightly, not that Loki would notice, “I have casual morning mugs of caffeine with all the supervillains that are— is this about Thor?”

Loki scrunches his face in distaste. “No, as impossible as it may seem, not everything revolves around Thor.”

Jane parts her lips in a soft “Oh,” as a light touch to her shoulder tells her to turn into The Daily Grind. She takes a seat and Loki asks for her order, then stands in line and orders at the counter before taking the seat opposite her. 

This is not what she expects of a civilian kidnapping. Which is what this technically is, isn’t it? Loki is not a nice guy, he fights the superheroes _regularly_ and even though she and Thor broke up years ago SHIELD still has her on their potential target watchlist (which is why she’d taken their job offering in the first place— if she was going to spend her time being spied on she was going to take advantage of the company’s high-tech resources in the progress, thank you very much) which is really funny because she’s only on the list because of Loki and she had been outside the SHIELD building when Loki had shown. 

“Sorry for the late notice, I’ve intended to speak with you for some time now but it took me a while to get the energy to do so.”

“Right,” Jane says, taking the formal situation into account and straightening up, “What about, exactly?”

She won’t give away anything about her ongoing unpublished research, obviously.

Loki reaches under the desk and pulls out a piece of paper, unfolding it. Jane can’t make out the scribbles on it from where she is but he presumably reads it aloud: “I owe you an apology for using you against Thor in a fight, I have to congratulate you on your breaking-up with Thor, and I also have a question about your latest online article, the one analysing the extricated low-level gamma radiation readings off the active Bifrost sites.”

She’s about to ask him to elaborate on that first point when the man behind the counter calls out “Foster and Tesseract!” and Loki smoothly gets up to collect their drinks. 

_Tesseract??_ Of course he didn’t give his own name, that might cause a scene.

He hands her her coffee and retakes his seat and Jane looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to begin. 

“I—” he clears his throat, “I want you to know that it doesn’t excuse my actions at the time but I was not in a good state of mind when this occurred, so bear with me.”

Certainly not how she expected this to start out. But admitting you have a problem is always a good place to start. 

“I called Thor soft,” he says, looking her in the eyes, very clearly attempting to hide shame behind the imploring voice. She did retain _some_ things from that psych unit she’d taken in her first year of uni, and the inanity of thinking he needs to apologize for calling Thor soft… she tries not to laugh. She’s _seen_ him do Thor far worse on TV. 

Her lack of response breaks his indifference. “I called Thor _soft_ , and said it was _because of you,_ and threatened to visit you myself with implications of harm, _”_ he clarifies, voice cracking.

She… doesn’t know how to react; this whole situation is rather unique to her. 

“You are for some reason not acting offended but I sincerely am sorry for using that to make him fight me.”

Okay, she’s clearly missing some context here, but, hey, he hasn’t started blasting magic fireballs around or started laughing maniacally so Jane thinks she’s doing good. 

“I also said he’d never see you again if he broke the Bifrost while trying to thwart my attempt to destroy a realm, because I did not want him to thwart my plan.”

Jane is trying to keep a straight face here. She really is. Alien space vikings. Always so much… violence. She’s definitely lacking in context.

“I’m so, so sorry, I shouldn’t have been using your name like that and will do whatever you reasonably wish for to make it up to you.”  
  
She hasn’t tried for her phone yet, but feels it’d be of no use. Loki has telekinetic powers anyway. The real question is how no one has noticed that Loki is sitting right here in a cafe opposite her looking desperate for... _forgiveness?_

What even is her life. Super spies who aren’t good at spying and Norse gods that should be malicious honestly apologizing for something from apparent years ago.

He takes a sip of his drink and leaves his hands around the mug which she finds very endearing. He taps his right index against the plastic; a nervous tic (?)

“I also wished to congratulate you on the break-up from Thor. He didn’t give me the full or true story but from what I understand you decided it wouldn’t work and acted on it and for that at the very least you must be commended. I know Thor can be a bit imposing, and I just wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything specific to prompt the split or act rashly after.” 

“Thank you,” she says after a pause to take a sip of her coffee; If it’s poisoned and she dies then she dies, she’s not going to risk turning down the drink he got her, that would definitely end badly. 

Her immediate instinct is to be angry of the accusation of course. Until it filters through that he isn’t assuming, but _asking_. At which point her astrophysicist brain completely shuts off because… is Thor’s younger evil brother asking her if Thor hurt her? Because that’s… sweet. That’s actually… really nice of him to do. 

“No, no, he was fine, he was disbelieving at first that I didn’t think we worked, and then he became angry and yelled a bit, but he didn’t touch me! We still talk when he’s not upstate or saving the world.”

Loki narrows his eyes in suspicion despite her assurances, but only for a brief moment. 

His eyes flit back to the paper and then she swears he brightens up even though she doesn’t pick up what causes the change. “Well then, Doctor, if you don’t mind, a question on your paper.”

She hums before questioning if aliens have non-verbal signs of agreement and adding, “Go ahead.”

Jane wonders what question he could have, and what exactly Loki was doing looking at her work regarding the Bifrost. Because it’s awfully suspicious for him to be having questions about this considering Asgard and the Bifrost were destroyed. 

“Your work notes anomalies in the electromagnetic radiation spiking at regular intervals during the activation of Bifrost sites after the initial four recorded ones, yes?”

Jane thinks back to her work, but it’s difficult through realizing that _yes, Loki is discussing her work at a cafe_. And he’s doing it in semi-formal attire and no one is recognizing him. Is it the casual way he’s holding himself? He certainly isn’t working to make himself seem larger than life as he usually does on TV.

She nods, and he continues. “I believe ambient radiation or something or other similar was interfering with the remote devices gathering data of later Bifrost sites. My question was regarding whether that is a possibility you have accounted for in both the original trials and in hypothetical programmed reproductions.”

Jane is careful to be wary in answering when such sensitive nature is at hand, even though there is no practical use of this theory as of yet. “No, we haven’t.”

Loki stares at her, not even blinking, eyes wide and curious (?) and he’s clearly awaiting a longer answer that Jane refuses to give. Even information about the devices used to measure the EMR are classified SHIELD R&D things. 

Loki’s small smile falters. “Wh— why not?!”

“We have no reason to suspect that, although it _would_ be a sound theory you could make an appeal for, _were you specialised in the field_.”

The man lets out a heavy breath in frustration, his face crumpling (luckily she doesn’t see any tears, that would be... awkward...) “But you won’t be able to get any new first hand data! And I’m quite sure the readings you’re going off are incorrect!”

She makes a show of looking him over unimpressed. “Why would we suspect anything off about the readings? We removed the ambient radiation and singled out the gamma wavelengths alone.”

“Gamma radiation is harmful to quite a few species across the Nine, it just doesn’t make sense to emit that everywhere traveled, for starters! Isn’t that enough to go off?”

 _She’s_ the one who has spent over a decade of her life specializing in the field and she deals with so many older men who think they know things, but, in this case snapping would be of no use. And Loki isn’t _wrong_ in saying all their obtained data would be thrown off, it’s just that they don’t know the amount or how much extra their readings were picking up. No, you know what? Loki hasn’t done anything to harm her, and he doesn’t look like he’s getting violent, so why not snap?? They’re in a cafe and the worst he could do without drawing attention to himself is take her coffee away. 

“It’s not!”

“But if you could just reduce the wavelengths to 10-10.2 and then—”

“—Do you know how much it costs to keep anyone interested in investigating these things?!” Jane looks around the cafe and notices some turning heads. She’ll be embarrassed about this a whole lot later but she isn’t really bothered by it right now sitting opposite the guy who set half the state parliament building on fire a few days ago. “The only reason I have a team to work with at all is because the government has to throw this kind of thing a standard salary for their astrophysics quota and I’m allowed to borrow SHIELD’s space-travel scientists on half-pay for a few hours on weekends because they try to leech off everything I do to begin with!! I can’t just magic up the money to get every possibility investigated!! And certainly not because _you_ think it needs to be done for _literally no reason!!!”_

Loki looks unaffected by her outburst, which is _infuriating_. 

“Ah,” he says, standing up, smoothening the front of his clothes and straightening his tie, “I see the issue.”

_Is that a velvet green tie?_

“Is that a velvet green tie?”

“Yes.”

This is _absurd_.

“How come no one recognizes you?”  
  
“Eh,” he half-shrugs, ”I think it’s the lack of the bulky helmet?” 

Loki’s clothes start glowing from his neck down, and suddenly he’s in his armour and someone screams, setting off panic in the entire room, with people rushing to get out and diving behind counters. 

“You don’t mind being a little late to work I presume?”

Jane opens her mouth and finds her mouth dry as it dawns on her that _this is a kidnapping._

He’s standing there in full leather getup and horny helmet and… she’s going to be late. 

She made out with a space alien a _few_ times, and her life’s just been a rollercoaster since, and now she’s going to be late and have to delay calibrating the damn machine till she does it in her own time. 

“Does it make a difference,” she laughs, slightly hysterical. 

“Well, yes, that’s why I asked?” Loki brings his cup still in hand to his mouth and takes a sip. As if people aren’t still scrambling out the door and cowering under tables. “That’s fine, wasn’t really in a fighting mood anyway, but if you think of anything I could do in apology I’ll just” —he leans on the table, materialising a glittery green gel pen in his non-coffee hand and starts writing on a napkin— “leave my number with you.”

 _Loki has a phone?_ Jane thinks, recalling that Thor very much does not as he kept losing his (his pant pockets are terrible, really, can’t fit anything with his juicy muscular thighs there mmmm) and Tony got tired of buying replacements. 

He finishes writing and slides the number over, and she warily picks it up and stuffs it in her pocket. Loki’s magic doesn’t need numbers to work, does it? He’s not going to mind control her via phone call, right?

“Shall I escort you to your place of work? If you are already late I’m sure it’ll be seen as adequate proof of—“

“No I’ll be fine,” She kindly declines, feeling numb. 

Loki just gave her his mobile number and asked to take her to work. Which is really _kind_ . But also he’s in his _armour_ and the panic has spread in the _streets_ ; she can hear people _screaming_ and see them _rushing around_ outside through the blurred window.

“Very well,” he dips his head slightly, “Carry on.” 

He then starts glowing that same shade of green, except instead of replacing the armour Loki is gone. 

People start to calm down but all Jane thinks about is how the _frick_ that works. 

* * *

Her traitorous mind keeps pestering her on the walk back to base so she delays the sensor machine work in favour of re-noting the Einstein-Rosen Bridge data _(Solely because she’s curious! Not because she’s falling into the villainous clutches of a villain!)._ She’s in the process of wondering if it could be a constant or fluctuating ambient force being emitted when she sees the Avengers have rocked up and are standing outside the SHIELD facility entrance. Fury is also here. This is just _great_.

“You had a run-in with Loki,” The man states, raising a single eyebrow.

“Thank you for reaching in time to do something about that,” she answers, raising her arms as the Black Widow steps forward to do the protocol pat-down.

“Careful Miss Foster, wouldn’t do to have you off of work for a week running mind-meddling scans for that attitude.”

“He didn’t do anything, just bought me coffee and— _hey!!_ ” Romanoff takes the foam cup, the check now complete. Jane glares at her. She was enjoying the drink, it may have been villain-bought coffee but it was still good coffee.

“Get that in the lab, I want all the nooks and crannies covered on its composition including the EM external tests; if any magic is detected on that thing I want to know.” 

Natasha and Barton leave together with her coffee. 

Fury turns his attention back to her, expectantly. 

“He, uh, also had a question about a research article, but it wasn’t a question about the science more like the method—” Fury puts a hand to his comm and cuts her off with something about having trace analysers look through her reports to see if anything compromising could be learnt. 

“Anything else Miss Foster?”

“It’s Doctor, actually,” a familiar voice says, and Jane feels Darcy drape her arms over her from behind in a hug. “What’s the fuss about this time?”

“Doctor Foster got caught in a Loki incident in a cafe that had less tech security measures than SHIELD,” Tony pipes up, Iron Man faceplate lifting to give Darcy a flirtatious look-over and a winning smile, “And now he’s sad because we flew over after the entire shebang was over.”

“Jane! You didn’t call me!” 

Jane lets out a tired laugh; getting kidnapped is exhausting and she just wants to go tamper with the wavelengths. “Was a bit busy to call.”

“Why didn’t the situation escalate?” Steve asks in an interrogation voice, taking them back to relevantly on-topic like the wise leader he is. (He wants to get back to the compound. He promised Bucky they would spar.) “Loki’s unpredictable, it’s part of what makes him dangerous, so why did he take you to a coffee place down the road instead of trying to hurt you?”

“Anything you’re forgetting to mention, Foster?” Fury adds on. 

She’s not going to tell them about the apologies, _obviously_. She might be able to call in a favour as of yet, and she’s quite sure that kind of personal information will either already be with SHIELD or is too private for even Thor to have volunteered for the record. Thor doesn’t tend to talk much about Loki before his fall to villainy which she thinks is a shame. Could help her decide if Loki’s a nice person or an evil villain or both. 

“He congratulated me.” 

“Congratulated?”

“On breaking up with Thor,” she clarifies.

Tony spends half a second trying to stifle a bark of laughter which Darcy doesn’t try to stop to begin with. Jane smiles. In hindsight it _is_ pretty funny.

“That is old news and we have made our peace,” Thor’s voice is loud and deep and goes over the laughs, and Jane makes sure her eyes stay trained on the spot where his cape latches onto his armour. Not because there are too many other parts of him that are distracting, but she’d rather not be thinking about his stormy grey eyes or the way they brighten up to match the clear morning sky or the way his neck hums when he speaks or the tightness of his pants on his thighs or the briskness of his beard or any other hypothetical things she doesn’t hypothetically want to be thinking about.

Fury gives her a brisk nod and turns, signalling for the remaining Avengers to file out. “We’ll have SHIELD on the scene to monitor for suspicious activity at the site and there’ll be compensation funds wired to your account shortly.”

Iron Man and Thor take to the air and the rest head in what Jane assumes is the direction of a quinjet and not a public bus. 

“So,” Darcy says, unlatching her thickly sweatered arms from around her, “You’re not in shock or something?”

“I don’t think so?”

“And you two actually talked about... science stuff?” 

“And had coffee,” Jane smiles.

“Duuuude that is _so_ cool,” Darcy says. She then proceeds to practically bouncing the entire way down the SHIELD building stairs to the lab complaining about how _that is actually possibly the most boring thing to have spent time with Loki doing_ but being happy Jane is alive to tell the tale nonetheless.

“So, we still using that shiny new fridge-sized metal box or the newer shinier fridge-sized metal box today? Despite you getting taken _hostage_ by the guy who turned multiple blocks of New York into a junkyard for fun that one time?” 

She ignores the comment on New York, Darcy is overdramatizing the entire thing, there weren’t many deaths and a majority of them had been SHIELD personnel. What she did with Loki was essentially more of a... coffee date, than a kidnapping, and Jane’s still bitter about missing the whole invasion debacle because she was sent off to _Tromsø_ of all places. The place had paid so much for a one-off assignment and she should’ve— _would’ve_ —found it suspicious if she hadn’t, as _usual_ , been running low on funding. “Actually I’m going to go back to the primary data and try some manipulation there.”

“You’re doing _what?!_ But that’s old news!! We were done with the numbers!!“

“Loki made a suggestion and I—”

“Jaaaaa _aaaaane!!”_ Darcy groans, “You don’t fall for the edgy bad boy, you _don’t_ fall for the sympathetic half-villains, and you _never,_ under _any circumstances_ go for the pale-skinned dark-haired coloured-eye ones!! Unless they’re a gymnast but Loki is not a— oh shit that’s— that’s in my head now— _shit_ —” 

“Darcy, he made a good suggestion! Plus, he thinks he owes me for something, so I doubt he’d try and give faulty advice,” Jane explains, ignoring the Darcy Talk parts of that. She’d say she’s not falling for him but Darcy would twist that somehow so she’s not even going to bother.

“He owes you something? Thor’s baby brother, the dark edgy emo BDSM one who regularly commits arson and dangles hostages off the empire state, _owes you something?!”_

“Jane,” Darcy says, putting a hand to either side of Jane’s face and looking her straight in the eyes, more serious than Jane has ever seen her be, “Tell me you didn’t fuck the rampant trickster god.”

If Jane still had her wonderful coffee with her this is where she would’ve spit it out.

“I did not happen to have sex with Loki in the cafe where we stopped for like five minutes, Darce,” Jane says, rolling her eyes. 

“Hey,” Darcy lets go of her face at least, “A lot can happen in five minutes.”

“Darcy!!” Jane exclaims scandalized.

“What? You jumped on the last sexy alien that showed up within, like, twenty minutes of discovering he exists. I have valid concerns!”

Jane feels a blush heating her cheeks and directs her attention to turning her desktop on. Darcy inconveniently continues speaking. “And Loki’s been terrorizing the planet for months, not counting the rambunctious debut _years_ ago, and that time you met him _a year after that_ and— oh my god you were still with Thor at that time please tell me you weren’t doubling up.”  
  
Jane is ignoring her. She has to start running the numbers on the gamma wavelengths but first her login needs to _load faster._

“Jane? _Jane!!_ Are you ignoring me?!” 

“Darcy, please, I need to run these numbers again.”

“The numbers?! Jane!! We don’t have the budget! Weren’t you the one who said today was going to be for the shiny doohickey in the corner? We’ll have to wait another week to have enough people to run it!! I can’t wait that long!!”

“You don’t even know what it does, do you?”  
  
“Uh, actually, I read the entire manual out loud to you yesterday so—”

“How much did you retain?” 

“I know where the _on_ button is and that’s what matters.”

Jane looks at her unimpressed and Darcy gives an awkward smile and does jazz hands in response.

At least she’s dropped the other topic?

“You’re right, you’re right,” Jane sighs and pushes her chair out. Darcy is right. They don’t have the funding so she’s going to have to use the hours she can pay the personnel today to test the remote sensor. She’ll just try and slot ‘writing up an appropriate algorithm to modify the data’ and ‘re-plot patterns visually’ and ‘remake simulator according to the new results’ and ‘trial run simulator into some other weekend. It’ll be incredibly tough to get to it and the nearest weekend she hasn’t got fully planned out is… in four weeks. 

She doesn’t want to have to wait that long but if all the previous data turns out false then none of what she investigates now matters unless she corrects the mistakes… 

Her phone lets out a loud _ding!_ and she pulls it out of her phone pocket to check what it is. 

(1) New Message : ‘Supervillain Compensation Funds’ has been transferred into account 367 275… 

She slides the notification to the side to see what scrap money she’s been given for her ten minutes of inconvenience and… oh… _oh my..._

This works.


	2. Looks Like Satin To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane definitely doesn't call Loki. She deals with temptation just fine, okay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder that there's swearing and sexual language here, okay? warning for Darcy POV especially because that instantly doubles the crack part of this fic.

The next few days pass in a blur.

Jane got enough dough to spend an entire day reworking numbers and then keep the SHIELD personnel on-site the entire Monday to make up for it. Which is wild, because Darcy had no clue a booty call could pay so well. 

And okay, yeah, maybe she’s doubting Jane and Loki _actually_ have anything going on since Jane’s a terrible liar and keeps denying it… but if she was Jane, she wouldn’t admit to it either!! Loki doesn’t exactly have a squeaky-clean reputation but he isn’t hard on the eyes so Darcy is very happy _if_ Jane _is_ getting it on with him. 

Good for her, honestly! She doesn’t get time to get out much and is a bit obsessive about her science so being obsessive about a sexy alien is much better _and_ at least this time the sexy alien is _on_ Earth! (which is definitely an improvement from the last time!)

And whether or not there were any coffee date sexy times... Jane got money in the _thousands_ for spending ten odd minutes in the presence of the local Top Tier Supervillain.

And Loki’s kill count may not be ‘up there’, but let it never be said that he isn’t on SHIELD’s most wanted list, because he’s consistently been their most foremost villainous customer since he turned to the dark side. 

He’s an actual real magical super-villain who can show up one day and turn all the traffic lights red or blow up a city block on a whim _depending on his mood!!_ He’s also self-motivated which would be great in maybe any other profession. But he has got the work ethic to be persistently a hero-ing annoyance so credit where it’s due, Darcy can give him that. 

They got the money, and even if there was no steamy cafe sex Darcy is happy Jane got money out of the ‘kidnapping’ because Jane hasn’t been this giddy in weeks! 

Monday passes and the new thingamajig shiny electro-something-or-other works fine, and now they’re back home and Darcy is watching a David Attenborough documentary about desert herd animals while Jane is cooking (and probably thinking about Loki? If Darcy were her, she’d be thinking about Loki _for sure_ ).

Erik sleeps on his regular mattress pushed up against the couch and Darcy is doing her best to keep the volume higher than his snores. 

Eventually Jane shows up, bringing two bowls of extra-cheesy mac and cheese with her and Darcy digs in, closing her eyes to savour the gooeyness. It’s the cheesiest most delicious mac and cheese ever— she swears Jane sold her soul to be able to make mac and cheese this good because she’s never tasted it this good anywhere else. Oh, _hey!_

“Di’ you cash in zat stripper favour to have goo’ mac n chee magic?” she asks, through a half open mouth of steaming cheesy goodness. 

Jane’s cheeks immediately heat up, which is the _cutest thing_. Prime blackmail material if Darcy weren’t such an angelic honourable kind-hearted soul.

“I didn’t have sex with Loki!” she exclaims, evidently exasperated about the topic. “We just sat at a table and talked and had drinks,” she says, waving her hands around for emphasis.

Maybe Darcy _is_ prodding a little too much. Then again, this is Jane and she actually did frick frackle with the Thunder Dunder semi-publicly enough...

“It’s okay,” She nods gravely, in understanding. “I would give an alien warlord a handjob under the table in a coffee shop too if it meant science money and magic cheese.”

“ _Darcy!!_ ” Jane says, but she’s laughing and waving her fork around, so Darcy gives her a smile back. 

“Fine, _fine_ , whatever,” she holds the bowl closer, protectively, sticking her cheese-covered tongue out. “Keep your better-than-sex cheese-y secrets to yourself then.”

Jane rolls her eyes and gestures to the TV. “Could you see if anything space-y is on.” 

“Already checked, it was either animals grazing or some weird cheesy sitcom.”

“Hmm, I thought you liked cheese?”

“A sitcom, Jane,” she complains, “A _sitcom_.”

Jane lets out a light laugh and continues eating.

They watch in silence for a while, Darcy making the occasional noise of pleasure because— let’s face it —Jane’s cooking really _is_ better than sex. Jane gives her a few weird looks, but she doesn’t mean them; they’ve been working together for years now, Janie knows the cheese drill.

David Attenborough is saying something about grazing less in the drier seasons when Jane pipes up again.

“We’re out of funds.”

Darcy blinks at her, slowly. Surely, she isn’t hearing right. “Could you just… say that again?” 

“I’m going to spend the rest of the funds to pay for the next Sunday and use the money I would have used originally to purchase some parts to make something to better calibrate the new sensor.” 

“We’re— _How!_ ”

“I know, I know,” Jane sighs, but goes for a smile, “But it was nice while it lasted?”

“Jane, that was _thousands of dollars,_ how can it be _gone?!”_

“I just told you where it went, you know how much it calls to pay an entire team on-site…”

Darcy groans, dragging a sweatered hand across her face she sinks further into her corner of the couch. She sobs. Loudly.

“We’re poor again,” she cries, to no one in particular. To the universe, maybe.

“Don’t be so dramatic, we’re not _poor_ , just back to the regularly scheduled program.”

Darcy continues being dramatic, but Janie ignores her. Which, _rude??_

She slides down flat so her foot is against Jane’s leg and kicks her a bit. 

“What?” Jane says, swallowing a mouthful of mac and cheese. Darcy nobly does not ask if she can have the rest of it. She knows Jane eats slow but that doesn’t mean she eats less.

“Why aren’t you watching the herds? They’re mating now, I thought you’d be extra invested,” Jane attempts to snark.

“Speaking of which…” Darcy says, the most brilliant of bad ideas coming to her, improving her mood instantly: “Why not call up your sugar daddy.” 

Jane coughs, choking for a second and bringing a hand to her mouth. “ _Darcy._ ”

“No really, you said he dropped you his number, just ring him up!” Darcy says, “It’ll be great, you guys can ‘ _talk’_ and have ‘ _coffee’_ for, like, more than ten minutes this time, and then SHIELD will just dump the funds with you, and then we can pay the sci dudes to come over more often, maybe even get out of this crappy two-room apartment.”

“I am _not_ calling up Loki, he could be out there trying to destroy the world or something, and if he actually decides to kidnap me this time then what?!”

“Then what?” Darcy repeats, sitting up. “Then the Avengers swoop in and save the day and you get paid even more? It’s not like your boyfriend would actually kill you, Loki has more class than that and plus there’s Thor to think about.”

“Loki isn’t afraid of Thor,” Jane says, remembering Loki’s behaviour when she’d brought his adopted brother up the other day. “Maybe doesn’t like him much, but he wouldn’t not kill me because of him. Remember the fish?”

“Right across the face,” Darcy nods.

“In the middle of a UN meeting too,” Jane reminds her. 

Darcy smiles, “It _was_ pretty funny though.” 

Jane rolls her eyes, pretending she hadn’t brought it up every moment for that entire week. “Yeah, it was funny.”

“I can respect a good fish to the face,” Darcy nods.  
  
Jane hums.

“I’d have to open the safe.”

“The sa— _Jane.”_ Darcy worries that Jane isn’t thinking it’s funny anymore, “I was _kidding._ You’re not calling _a megalomaniac_ to _kidnap you_ because we need money.”

“I— _oh_.” 

Oh that’s _wonderful_. A sparkling ray of hope for the limits of what Jane’ll do for science. 

Darcy mocks, unbelieving Jane thinks she’d tell her to go to extremes like this, “Enamoured, wooed, held so hostage by her feelings for the Dark and Brooding Bad Boy Supreme that even her own safety and the basest logics escape her...”

“I’m swooning,” Jane drily replies. 

Darcy gives her a smile as she pulls herself up and grabs her and Jane’s empty bowls as she goes to the kitchen to wash up. 

Darcy turns the sink tap on and grabs the sponge and starts scrubbing. She… sure _hopes_ Jane knew she wasn’t serious about calling Loki. She’d been the one to suggest locking his mobile in the safe to begin with because there was no way she was going to let some voodoo hocus pocus get them via tissue paper; An inch of lead on each side _had_ to be able to stop mind control magic, right? Well, she thinks she saw something like that in a movie once, and it’s the best hope she has.

 _Jane won’t actually call the guy,_ Darcy assures herself, but at the same time she sees how happy Jane had been the past few days, and she looks around and sees how musty this second-rate apartment is, and thinks of what better place they could have with a few thousand more dollars a week… 

And, well, if _Darcy_ is tempted to call up the wack-job for a hand-job if it means less mould on the kitchen ceiling… then Jane is definitely thinking it, because if there’s one thing Jane is, it’s ambitious. 

* * *

It’s 3am and Jane has slipped out of bed and snuck to the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind her as not to wake Darcy. 

Earlier, Darcy had reminded her that “Supervillains are Not Plan A” before they’d gone to bed, and Jane had felt her heart stop at the thought that Darce had caught on to her plan… until her friend had followed up with “Supervillains are Plan B, B for Bad and A Choice Other Act I Will Not Mention” and given her a huge, exaggerated wink. 

She loves Darcy, but the girl can’t keep making such bad jokes. (Jane will work on not finding them outrageously funny after Darcy stops.)

She flicks the light switch on, wincing as it makes an audible click and the LED flickers to light, tinting everything a fluorescent yellow. 

The bathroom feels timeless.

She uncrumples the napkin and stares at Loki’s number, the scribbled digits not _neat_ exactly, but _eloquent_ for sure.

_How the frick doth one write eloquently?_

Jane shakes her head and pulls her phone out of her pant pocket, having concealed it there rather than put it on charging for the night. (Darcy hadn’t noticed.)

She takes a deep breath in and dials up the number, bringing it to her ear. 

_You’re only phoning a supervillain,_ she tells herself sarcastically, _why are your hands shaking?_

The phone rings once, twice— he might not even pick up. This might not even be his real number. It could’ve been a joke —three times, no answer.

She releases the breath she’d been holding. He didn’t picked up. Of course it was too good to be true. But… Loki has never seemed bad to her. He kills people on the news and terrorizes them on the news but… he’s only ever been… nice _,_ _decent,_ even, to her. 

She presses on his number again. 

He picks up before it rings once. 

“Hello?” he asks warily, not a trace of sleepiness in his voice. Jane is startled by that, considering how unreal the bathroom is feeling right now. 

She leans against the sink. “Do you still owe me a favour?”

“I— Doctor Jane Foster,” Loki concludes, voice sharpening into the more arrogant drawl that is to be expected, “That was rather fast, please tell me you haven’t decided on something unimaginatively dull involving handing myself over to SHIELD in chains or the like.”

Ha! She hadn’t even considered that. The few times he’s been taken into custody never end well for the keepers involved and he always got out anyway.

“I need you to kidnap me again.” 

“Beg my pardon but you want me to _what?”_

“I’m cashing in that favour.”

“But _why?_ ” Loki asks, sounding genuinely baffled. Jane chews on a nail but figures it’d be better not to tell him the reason. What if he gets angry he’s being exploited for money? Oh god, of all the times to start seeing Darcy’s prostitute comparison...

She makes a low frustrated noise, _well shiz_ , she’d feel bad if she didn’t tell now and he’d just keep asking or figure it out himself eventually; it wasn’t as if SHIELD general policies weren’t available online...

“Supervillain Compensation Funds. I’ll get paid for it and you’ll no longer owe me a favour. We both win and we can schedule a time that works for both of us.”

“Everyone wins,” Loki sighs, “I get that, but why would you need the money? You’re a lead scientist, there is no other work going on in this field at all, how could you be lacking in any form of resource regardless?”

“That’s personal,” she says, not willing to bare the sob-story that is women in the theoretical science field being underpaid and overworked and her own motivation driving her to keep working towards solving the mysteries of the universe at the cost of any expenses she can save on. 

“You’re doing revolutionary work and have a government-paid job, shouldn’t you have benefit packages or something? It’d be ridiculously foolish of them to not provide you with what is needed.”

She grinds her teeth. SHIELD had in fact offered her an apartment she would be entitled to both for her work and having been associated with Thor and being a possible target for Avengers villains (oh the irony) but she refuses to accept their hospitality at the cost of having to stay in a section of a heavily-monitored building. She doesn’t think they would be above bugging her apartment or having cameras around to steal her independent work. 

“No one is willing to pay a female in the field of astrophysics enough, okay!!” She confesses, remembering to lower her voice towards the end. The sun rises in a few hours and she hasn’t slept so she keeps hissing despite any semblance of her better judgement. “I’m only able to hire the laboratories with equipment _I filled in the starting loan for_ two days a week and a majority of my work involves machinery _I put together myself_ and I _need_ to upgrade something the coming week but _can’t_ compromise on getting the apartment bills paid which is why I thought—” she cuts herself off, gasping for breath. Why is she getting so emotional over this? WHy did she call Loki of all people. Is this really how desperate she is? Having to wait a few months before upgrading a geothermal subnuclear scanner and she’s reduced to a pleading _mess_. She’s going to regret this entire conversation in the morning, she just knows.

“I’ll do it.”

She blinks, realizing she’s been staring at a patch of the fluorescent-tinted shower wall where the wallpaper is peeling off to reveal the dark brown mould growing underneath. She shakes her head, not sure she heard right. A pause, before he repeats: “I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t exactly sound _enthusiastic_ to Jane, but he’s agreeing to do it! “And you can keep the favour.”

She’ll try not to read into that. Damn maybe Darcy _was_ onto something, if it’s this easy to get more money for her work...

“I presume you’re free tomorrow?”

“Most of the morning, yes.”

“I’ll be there by 10.”

Jane contains a joyous giggle. She will _not_ be so happy about a _kidnapping_. Loki is still a villain, he’s dangerous, she needs to be careful and not give away more about herself than she has to. He also just implied he’ll find her in the morning which… adds slight concern to her hysterical joy. 

“You can use the address—”

“Don’t need it,” Loki says distractedly, leaving her with serious questions. She assumed he’d found her place of work and knew she regularly worked there but even if he knew which building how would he know the apartment number… _“What?!”_

“Don’t need it,” he says, the sound of cloth rustling in the background. Is he seriously getting up and dressed at this unholy hour? “Goodbye.”

Goodbye?! _GOODBYE?!_

Loki hangs up the call, leaving Jane with an unwanted image of Loki sleeping shirtless. Does he wear pants to bed? She gets the feeling he's one of those people who throws on nothing but luxurious satin boxers or something equally pretentious. No wait, she doesn’t care, it’s too early/late for this and this is clearly Darcy Dream Osmosis infiltrating her mind. She doesn’t even like Loki. Or, well, he’s _nice_ , but she’s not really interested. Besides, she already knows how Thor sleeps and mmmmhhhhhhh…

The shock of being hanged up on and Loki possibly having her address doesn’t cloud over her happiness at knowing she’ll have more excess money this week. She’s so happy she could cry! Instead she lets out a cheer... and then realising it was probably too loud she inconspicuously flushes the toilet and washes her hands. 

She’ll sneak out the bathroom and back into bed after saving Loki’s number. That could be important. Especially since she still has that favour. 

* * *

Darcy had been up reading unsolicited works of fiction on her phone when Jane had slipped out. The apartment is near-silent and the bathroom door muffles most of the sound… but with the hurried secretive conversation and the way Jane whoops with success at the end she has no doubts Janie had rung up Loki.

Darcy tucks her phone under the pillow and turns to face the wall just as the water pipes start creaking. She will do her best to fall asleep and not look like she knows Jane stayed up half the night to sneakily talk to Loki in the bathroom, which is something she will also coincidentally be trying to forget forever thank you. Hopefully when Jane returns she won’t pay much mind to her, and will be too busy gushing over whatever sappy love stuff they talked about.

She is, unfortunately, _not_ asleep by the time Jane returns humming happily to herself. 

And she trusts Jane’s word on the matter. 

But. 

Darcy isn’t entirely sure they aren’t sexing it up in their down time.

**Author's Note:**

> *shaking a tin* com,men,ts,? comm,,ents? tell me wh,at you thi,nk?


End file.
